After one quarter of using the gamified course design in my English 11 course, I'm taking a step away and shifting back to a (slightly) more traditional approach. I think there's a few reasons it's not working so well with this group...and while 'waiting it out' might seem like the best approach, and I think there's value to be making changes along the way.
Now, to be fair, this isn't a complete shift back to traditional teaching. The content will still all be available online, students will still have the right to move through quickly (or slowly) if they want, students will still be able to turn in work late, or redo assignments as needs, and students will still engage in many group assignments and project-based assessments. The only thing I'm removing is the gamified LMS which wasn't working for two reasons. First, as this was the first time I was teaching this course, it was very difficult to "put the plane together while flying". Even though I had planned everything out before school started, there was still a good deal of guesswork. If you design a nine-weeks to have 1000 XP available, and suddenly you've only covered 700 XP, you've got to change the whole grading schedule which makes it very difficult for students to set goals. Additionally, the LMS, while I believe relatively user friendly, was proving to be a stumbling block for this group. Many in this class weren't great with technology and while they've come a long way, they were getting frustrated with the system. I could keep it in place and let them "get used to it", but I don't feel there's much long term value in being to use 3D GameLab. As a result, my English 11 course will be slightly more traditional next quarter. The good news, I think it takes the best of the "game"...but leaves the tricky behind.
Now, to be fair, this isn't a complete shift back to traditional teaching. The content will still all be available online, students will still have the right to move through quickly (or slowly) if they want, students will still be able to turn in work late, or redo assignments as needs, and students will still engage in many group assignments and project-based assessments. The only thing I'm removing is the gamified LMS which wasn't working for two reasons. First, as this was the first time I was teaching this course, it was very difficult to "put the plane together while flying". Even though I had planned everything out before school started, there was still a good deal of guesswork. If you design a nine-weeks to have 1000 XP available, and suddenly you've only covered 700 XP, you've got to change the whole grading schedule which makes it very difficult for students to set goals. Additionally, the LMS, while I believe relatively user friendly, was proving to be a stumbling block for this group. Many in this class weren't great with technology and while they've come a long way, they were getting frustrated with the system. I could keep it in place and let them "get used to it", but I don't feel there's much long term value in being to use 3D GameLab. As a result, my English 11 course will be slightly more traditional next quarter. The good news, I think it takes the best of the "game"...but leaves the tricky behind.
RSS Feed